meta: lex-- lightswitch, or clever rouse by the SV writers?
So I was reading beeej's commentary on Aqua, and I made my own commentary on Aqua and dianehc made a few comments that had my muse going WILD, and elandrialore did too, and I have to talk about Lex.
And ya know what? I'm starting to think maybe Lightswitch Lex isn't so lightswitch afterall. Maybe there's actually thought behind this. Or, I'm just so upset by the lightswitch that I'm trying to give the writers more credit than they deserve, LOL.
beeej said: I know that I have been one of the few out here who hasn't had a problem with Lex's turn to the dark side. I have seen it happening little by little for a while now, and I thought it was gradual enough that it was plausible. But tonight? OMG! That was comic book Lex! That was "I'm going to build a weapon and make billions of dollars and who cares if it destroys all the marine life on the planet BWAHAHAHAHA" Lex. Holy light switch, Batman.
And that got me really thinking. That makes sense. Because I've been seriously thrown by people's okay-ness with Lex's sudden change. Because to me it is a sudden change, and I'll get to this in a minute, but I just wanted to point out something I said to elandrialore:
I've read way too many journals that are just tralala with their episodes, and I'm like "how can you not be bothered by this?!" Course, Evil Lex is sexy, so I can deal (happily) but it still irks me. Maybe it's cause we're writers? Cause dude. If I wrote a fic that had as little transition from Regular Lex to Evil Lex as the show did? I would get lambasted by the fic reading community.
But beeej, I think, made a really good point. Maybe I read into things more than your average viewer. As a matter of fact, I think I do. And that's not a slam on the average viewer, that's just a sign of the writer in me. I analyze things to an admittedly obsessive degree. LOL. I analyze, I work over them, I read into them, I pull out from them. That is what makes me able to write Lex, able to write Clark, able to write anyone for any fandom that I'm able to write... I don't just see what's on the surface, I analyze every facial tick, ever hand twitch, every single emotion in the eye, etc.
And this is exactly the responce I had to beeej:
As one of the people who HAS had such a problem with the lightswitchness of Lex's evilhood, I guess I can see where some people didn't see it yet. Cause really, until tonight's episode, he wasn't evil. But it was just his... Podlike State. Lex went into a coma.
The thing that really did me in was when Lana fell and Lex just... Looked at her. That was not Lex standing in that road, and my heart sank like lead balloon. Like Lexana or not, like Lana or not, it didn't even MATTER that it was Lana. For Lex to stand there, looking at this person that just faceplanted into the dirt like she was an annoyance, instead of going "oh, shit, are you okay?" That? Was not Lex. Up until Forever (that was the second to last episode right? that's the one I mean) Lex was still Lex. In Commencement he was a little different, but that was about the stones and the Lionel and all that...
And I mean, he went from telling Lana "You mean more to me than you know" and being tortured over it in Commencement to watching her face plant in the concrete with a possibly broken leg and not CARING in Arrival?
I've decided to embrace Evil Lex, but I'd like to see a little of his emotions start to eek back in, because I haven't seen Lex give a shit since the start of this season about anything. No hurt, no betrayal, no sadness... only annoyance, anger, and a little bit of desperation to understand.
However...
beeej said: And that last scene with Clark...when Clark said, "I defended you", that got to him. He faltered there. He still loves Clark. And I think that's what's making him so fucking angry. Poor baby.
THAT did my heart good. That flicker. That flicker that maybe Lex is SOMEWHERE in there. He's just not coming out to play. Pod Lex has taken over, and maybe that's becuase Regular Lex shut down, and let Alexander come out to play.
And before I start my true meta/wank on Lex, I want to mention what dianehc said to me in my Aqua commentary:As far as the quick evil switch, I have my own theory on that from the split lex episode, (I can never remember episode names). In my thoughts, when Clark re-fused Lex and Alexander, Lex was too weakened from his dungeon time to retake control.
The upside of that thought is that there's a desperate suffering Lex trapped inside just waiting for Clark to save him.
beeej had much the same thoughts.
And ya know, I really like that idea. My thoughts are a wee bit different. It makes it a lot easier to refer to an Evil Lex versus Good Lex in Onyx, but really they're the same person. Two different sides to the same person. Everyone has a dark side. That side of you that goes to the supermarket and gets in the express lane behind someone with 100 items when the sign clearly says only 15 that goes "I swear to fucking God, you moron, someone should shoot you, someone should stab you in the EYE.. can you not READ?!" (Or maybe that's just me. I doubt it.)
My brain is seriously thinking too fast for me to type right now. Okay.
So here's my thoughts. Lex is still in there. His good side, is still inside this Pod Lex. But Lex is fed fucking up. He's so fed up with Clark's lies and mistrust, and everyone's lies and mistrust. He's hurt, he's broken, he's fractured. He WANTS to do good, he WANTS to be good. He wants so badly to be someone that CAN be trusted, that doesn't NEED to be lied to. And everytime he thinks he's there, something happens to shoot him down. Someone lies to him, someone leaves him, someone betrays him.
And just, ya know... In Commencement, he sees this flash of light, and Clark in it's "epicenter" (I love he phrased it like that, Lex and his lexicon is love) and then Clark's gone, and Chloe's gone, and Chloe's in the fucking YUKON.
So ya know what? Lex. Just. Shuts. Down.
He didn't go bad. He gave up!!!
He shut off the side that cares, he beat down the part of him that wants to be accepted. He's still there, somewhere, he was there for a SPLIT second in Lex's eyes last night when Clark said he defended him, but he's not on the surface.
It's really easy to shut down. And if that's what's happening? If it's just that Lex has stifled his conscience? If it's just that Lex is tired, and fucking fed up, and just so completely on edge that he just CAN'T be his good self anymore... I can accept that.
I can LOVE that, actually.
But they need to show us. I can have patience, but they need to start showing me signs. That flicker in Lex's ey es last night is enough to feed me for this episode, but I want to see more. I want to see...
See, my theory is is that Lex is so completely close to a breakdown. Right now he's running on anger and adrenaline, but there's only so long you can sustain that before you start to shatter.
I have this thing I use to describe what I think Lex is going through, and it's that he's bleeding on the inside, and the only place you can see it is in his eyes. I saw it for two seconds last night, and I saw it in Mortal when he hit Clark and Clark bled.
That frenetic, panicked "oh, God, what have I done, what is happening, I don't understand, this has to be a game, what's going on, this can't be real, what have I done, it can't be real, it's not real, I know it's not real, they're playing tricks on me, this is another head game, fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU... but what if it's not?"
Because Lex has been so... wild these past few episodes. Wild-eyed. So... He's controlled, but he's vibrating on the inside. You can just barely see it trembling beneath what is somewhat a cool exterior.
My God, is that h ow they're playing it? Because if that is how they're playing it, I am so IN for that. I'm so completely hook, line, and sinker IN.
But if it's just "he woke up evil," then no. I'm not.
I hope so. This is like an epiphany. Why didn't I wank it this way before?!!!
Please, next episode of SV, show me some more signs that Lex is still in there. Don't blow it wide up, just give me some crumbs, tell me I'm on the right track. I can SO have patience, becuase if this is the way they're taking it? If this is what they're doing? The payoff will be SO fucking GOOD.
Oooooooooooooooh.
I love this theory. I love it, and I want to have it's babies.
Which will likely lead to fic. LOL.
I always feel like such a freak when I write meta like this. Is it pretentious or interesting? Did I just bore you out of your mind? LOL. I can't say i'll stop, because man, I can pontificate with the best of them, but... I'm interested to know if you found it a worthwhile read.
And ya know what? I'm starting to think maybe Lightswitch Lex isn't so lightswitch afterall. Maybe there's actually thought behind this. Or, I'm just so upset by the lightswitch that I'm trying to give the writers more credit than they deserve, LOL.
beeej said: I know that I have been one of the few out here who hasn't had a problem with Lex's turn to the dark side. I have seen it happening little by little for a while now, and I thought it was gradual enough that it was plausible. But tonight? OMG! That was comic book Lex! That was "I'm going to build a weapon and make billions of dollars and who cares if it destroys all the marine life on the planet BWAHAHAHAHA" Lex. Holy light switch, Batman.
And that got me really thinking. That makes sense. Because I've been seriously thrown by people's okay-ness with Lex's sudden change. Because to me it is a sudden change, and I'll get to this in a minute, but I just wanted to point out something I said to elandrialore:
I've read way too many journals that are just tralala with their episodes, and I'm like "how can you not be bothered by this?!" Course, Evil Lex is sexy, so I can deal (happily) but it still irks me. Maybe it's cause we're writers? Cause dude. If I wrote a fic that had as little transition from Regular Lex to Evil Lex as the show did? I would get lambasted by the fic reading community.
But beeej, I think, made a really good point. Maybe I read into things more than your average viewer. As a matter of fact, I think I do. And that's not a slam on the average viewer, that's just a sign of the writer in me. I analyze things to an admittedly obsessive degree. LOL. I analyze, I work over them, I read into them, I pull out from them. That is what makes me able to write Lex, able to write Clark, able to write anyone for any fandom that I'm able to write... I don't just see what's on the surface, I analyze every facial tick, ever hand twitch, every single emotion in the eye, etc.
And this is exactly the responce I had to beeej:
As one of the people who HAS had such a problem with the lightswitchness of Lex's evilhood, I guess I can see where some people didn't see it yet. Cause really, until tonight's episode, he wasn't evil. But it was just his... Podlike State. Lex went into a coma.
The thing that really did me in was when Lana fell and Lex just... Looked at her. That was not Lex standing in that road, and my heart sank like lead balloon. Like Lexana or not, like Lana or not, it didn't even MATTER that it was Lana. For Lex to stand there, looking at this person that just faceplanted into the dirt like she was an annoyance, instead of going "oh, shit, are you okay?" That? Was not Lex. Up until Forever (that was the second to last episode right? that's the one I mean) Lex was still Lex. In Commencement he was a little different, but that was about the stones and the Lionel and all that...
And I mean, he went from telling Lana "You mean more to me than you know" and being tortured over it in Commencement to watching her face plant in the concrete with a possibly broken leg and not CARING in Arrival?
I've decided to embrace Evil Lex, but I'd like to see a little of his emotions start to eek back in, because I haven't seen Lex give a shit since the start of this season about anything. No hurt, no betrayal, no sadness... only annoyance, anger, and a little bit of desperation to understand.
However...
beeej said: And that last scene with Clark...when Clark said, "I defended you", that got to him. He faltered there. He still loves Clark. And I think that's what's making him so fucking angry. Poor baby.
THAT did my heart good. That flicker. That flicker that maybe Lex is SOMEWHERE in there. He's just not coming out to play. Pod Lex has taken over, and maybe that's becuase Regular Lex shut down, and let Alexander come out to play.
And before I start my true meta/wank on Lex, I want to mention what dianehc said to me in my Aqua commentary:As far as the quick evil switch, I have my own theory on that from the split lex episode, (I can never remember episode names). In my thoughts, when Clark re-fused Lex and Alexander, Lex was too weakened from his dungeon time to retake control.
The upside of that thought is that there's a desperate suffering Lex trapped inside just waiting for Clark to save him.
beeej had much the same thoughts.
And ya know, I really like that idea. My thoughts are a wee bit different. It makes it a lot easier to refer to an Evil Lex versus Good Lex in Onyx, but really they're the same person. Two different sides to the same person. Everyone has a dark side. That side of you that goes to the supermarket and gets in the express lane behind someone with 100 items when the sign clearly says only 15 that goes "I swear to fucking God, you moron, someone should shoot you, someone should stab you in the EYE.. can you not READ?!" (Or maybe that's just me. I doubt it.)
My brain is seriously thinking too fast for me to type right now. Okay.
So here's my thoughts. Lex is still in there. His good side, is still inside this Pod Lex. But Lex is fed fucking up. He's so fed up with Clark's lies and mistrust, and everyone's lies and mistrust. He's hurt, he's broken, he's fractured. He WANTS to do good, he WANTS to be good. He wants so badly to be someone that CAN be trusted, that doesn't NEED to be lied to. And everytime he thinks he's there, something happens to shoot him down. Someone lies to him, someone leaves him, someone betrays him.
And just, ya know... In Commencement, he sees this flash of light, and Clark in it's "epicenter" (I love he phrased it like that, Lex and his lexicon is love) and then Clark's gone, and Chloe's gone, and Chloe's in the fucking YUKON.
So ya know what? Lex. Just. Shuts. Down.
He didn't go bad. He gave up!!!
He shut off the side that cares, he beat down the part of him that wants to be accepted. He's still there, somewhere, he was there for a SPLIT second in Lex's eyes last night when Clark said he defended him, but he's not on the surface.
It's really easy to shut down. And if that's what's happening? If it's just that Lex has stifled his conscience? If it's just that Lex is tired, and fucking fed up, and just so completely on edge that he just CAN'T be his good self anymore... I can accept that.
I can LOVE that, actually.
But they need to show us. I can have patience, but they need to start showing me signs. That flicker in Lex's ey es last night is enough to feed me for this episode, but I want to see more. I want to see...
See, my theory is is that Lex is so completely close to a breakdown. Right now he's running on anger and adrenaline, but there's only so long you can sustain that before you start to shatter.
I have this thing I use to describe what I think Lex is going through, and it's that he's bleeding on the inside, and the only place you can see it is in his eyes. I saw it for two seconds last night, and I saw it in Mortal when he hit Clark and Clark bled.
That frenetic, panicked "oh, God, what have I done, what is happening, I don't understand, this has to be a game, what's going on, this can't be real, what have I done, it can't be real, it's not real, I know it's not real, they're playing tricks on me, this is another head game, fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU... but what if it's not?"
Because Lex has been so... wild these past few episodes. Wild-eyed. So... He's controlled, but he's vibrating on the inside. You can just barely see it trembling beneath what is somewhat a cool exterior.
My God, is that h ow they're playing it? Because if that is how they're playing it, I am so IN for that. I'm so completely hook, line, and sinker IN.
But if it's just "he woke up evil," then no. I'm not.
I hope so. This is like an epiphany. Why didn't I wank it this way before?!!!
Please, next episode of SV, show me some more signs that Lex is still in there. Don't blow it wide up, just give me some crumbs, tell me I'm on the right track. I can SO have patience, becuase if this is the way they're taking it? If this is what they're doing? The payoff will be SO fucking GOOD.
Oooooooooooooooh.
I love this theory. I love it, and I want to have it's babies.
Which will likely lead to fic. LOL.
I always feel like such a freak when I write meta like this. Is it pretentious or interesting? Did I just bore you out of your mind? LOL. I can't say i'll stop, because man, I can pontificate with the best of them, but... I'm interested to know if you found it a worthwhile read.